You know, it’s a crazy vacation week, with the kids off 12 days straight—not the best time for organized posts, so I will keep it short. It also appears I have a cold coming on, which would be most unfortunate, as I am having a party here tomorrow, one which, it may surprise you to know, I have not begun to prepare for except I made about two pounds of sweet-and-sour meatballs. It’s supposed to snow most of the day and, it may surprise you to know (is there an echo in here?) that I do not have enough gas for the snow blower, and I am the only person in New England who does not drive a four-wheel drive vehicle. So good luck to me. On the other hand, I do have a whole lot of red wine in the house and a couple of boxes of cereal. Sounds like a party to me.

I already made resolutions back when the Jewish new year happened, so I don’t see what the point is in making more resolutions I won’t keep. I would truly like to keep my house clean, or at least neat and organized, but I am like Pig Pen in Charlie Brown—wherever I go, mess follows. I think the safer resolution would be to learn to love the mess.

I got a small but interesting response to Monday’s post. If you’re a loyal reader and were paying attention, you would know that I didn’t actually get that post up until about 10 a.m. on Monday, which means I slipped my deadline for the first time—by a good 10 hours. That’s because I really didn’t have a post I liked going into Sunday; I had a couple of half-finished pieces I didn’t think were coming together. At about 9 on Sunday night, I tried starting something new. I have never written a Monday post in less than, oh, five hours, so how I thought I was going to make that happen and be pleased with it, I don’t know.

So, uncharacteristically, I said screw it, I’m going to deal with this in the morning, everyone’s on vacation anyhow. And as soon as I woke up on Monday, I leaned over from my bed, picked up my laptop off the floor, and worked the draft I had of Who Pays into something I thought hung together reasonably well, even if it wasn’t my best work.

The interesting response was that it got quite a good review by a couple of loyal readers. And in rereading the piece, I see it’s not actually too bad. Since this came about on the last day of Hanukah, I guess we’ll have to call it a Hanukah miracle.

I’ve also been fretting lately that I was running out of what to say for my Sex in the Suburbs columns. My friend Dale told me to relax, that it would come if I didn’t stress. Well, I got handed such a gift today in the form of some news about someone with whom I had a relationship that is going to give me the best column for next Monday. If you’re not a loyal reader or not a fan of the Monday columns, oh do come back next week. The only thing I can say is that what’s happened is stranger than fiction, and if I don’t get a classically great column out of it, then I ought to just stop writing.

I can’t wait to get going on it, so I resolve not to drink too much tonight (oh, that’s rich!) so that I might be able to write on Thursday.

If you’re used to my usual format, I apologize for throwing your life into disarray by not putting my little Wheel of Fortune Wednesdays symbol on this post, but those who actually read real blogs might recognize this post for what it is: mindless drivel. But I hope it’s brightened your day and given you something to look forward to in the new year.

Have a wonderful, safe time tonight, hopefully with at least one person you truly care about or, barring that, someone fun to drink champagne with.

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BetsyG likes to write even more than she likes to talk. Her essays have been published in the Boston Globe Magazine. She has children who would be horrified to be associated with her and her blogazine. BetsyG is a happy divorcée and, suffering from a bad case of arrested development, has no idea how old she really is; her deluded belief is that she's your age, whatever it may be.